Is Lyrics Grammatical Or Wot?

Not necessarily.

Very funnycolumn by Saptarshi Ray who has been getting folks to send in their pet grammatical hates in pop song lyrics. The list is long. My personal favourite is this comment from BrianC:

“’We don't need no education.’ Well... you've slightly undermined yourself there, haven't you?”

Now try and do the same for musical theatre songs and it seems to me to be a lot harder. There is, I think, a simple reason for this: musical theatre songs need to make sense.

If pop lyrics don’t need grammar it’s because there’s less need to ensure a clear expression of meaning. So this sort of Paul Simon thing would sound awful in a musical:

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don't find this stuff amusing anymore

This is a wonderfully singable stream of consciousness, associations and wordplay. But it is also nonsense or, to put it more favourably, it’s meaning is allusive. 


That’s fine for Paul Simon but stick this in a musical and the audience would be scratching its collective head. There’s no way to express character, situation or drama in this kind of lyric. Musical lyrics need to mean something and that meaning needs to be clear. If grammar helps, then bring it on. Innit?

Making a Song and Dance of Australian Politics

An illuminating MusicalTalk discussion on the state of musicals down under between Nick "The Guv’nor" Hutson and two antipodeans, Luisa Lyons and Maryann Wright. Even more illumination from this excellent article.

During the discussion mention is made of the hit show Keating! the Musical based on the political career of the former Prime Minster, Paul Keating. This has played successfully all across Australia but raises the question: could this show work elsewhere?

Now I’m not normally a fan of exclamation mark musicals and, when it comes to Aussie politics, I’m as dumb as a galah. But I happened to catch this show a few years back in the beautiful city of Adelaide ("Go Crows") and had a heaps good time. So how could a politically-ignorant pom enjoy Keating! and could the show travel?

Well, much of it would. Really the aim is to be funny and, as always, funny songs need funny ideas. So re-staging Prime Minister’s Question Time as a rap contest is pretty funny in any language, even if you don’t know who John Hewson is or get all the references to General Services Tax:

Of course, this being Aussie politics, the punch lines are verbatim. Can’t imagine David Cameron dispatching that from the Dispatch Box.

There are more funnies from the rest of the show including that good ol’ standard: men dressing up as women (it’s an all-male cast). “Freaky” is a difficult song to describe but if you imagine William Haig in suspenders singing like a frustrated lush, you’ll get the drift. Even better is the romantic ballad “Heavens,Mr. Evans” about an affair between two members on the opposite sides of party politics: 


HE: 
My heart’s in peril, Cheryl
Loving you so much
SHE: 
Heavens, Mr. Evans
How I tingle at your touch
BOTH: 
We’re equally enamoured but differently aligned
HE: 
And also, aren’t you married?
SHE: 
Yes I am.
HE: 
As am I.
BOTH: 
Never mind!

As far as there is a political point to the show I’d say it was a more general one about political personalities. Arriving inbetween the instinctive populism of Bob Hawkes and the manufactured mateship of John Howard, Keating is presented as vain, elitist, mercurial and frankly downright un-Australian; the blip of an authentic radical to enliven the familiar political pulse. It’s a wonder he ever became Prime Minister. “Light on a Hill” has him mixing mockery with melancholy against a thoughtless kind of reactionism:

"Bring us back our comfy bloody country
Take us back to simple days of yore
Nothing alien or scary
La-de-da or airy fairy
Just put it back the way it was before"

So there’s a lot to love in this show and plenty that would translate:

1. The songs are very well crafted.

2.  It’s more funny than political.

3.  Men dressed as women.

On the other hand: 

4. Of course laughter is infectious and one clueless pom can happily enjoy the show amongst an audience who get all the jokes. A whole audience of poms would be a different thing.

5.  There would be no way to market the thing to a non-Aussie audience.

So I can’t see this show joining fine wine and Clive James on the list of great Australian exports. That's a shame. At least we can console ourselves with the shiraz.